In many production operations it is customary to load the products of the operation usually upon pallets for transportation, sometimes by forklift trucks to final points of disposition to warehouses or other facilities.
It has been the accepted practice to pile the items up by hand upon the pallets. The items are usually of rectangular cross-section such as boxes or cartons or sometimes loose bundles of items such as knocked-down flat corrugated paper cartons, as is common in that industry. This involves considerable labor cost and time factor and places a substantial burden on the efficiency of the overall operation of the business.
The most relevant prior art known to applicant directed to this problem is represented by the Pulda U.S. Pat. No. 4,311,425 which is concerned primarily with manual operations and does not teach any automation.
Applicant is not aware of any successful attempt to automatically effect the load forming and palletizing of loads or stacks described herein.